ESTABLISHED 1875. The Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal Published Every Morning. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1905. A NATION'S BIRTH THROES.

Manawatu Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 423, 10 July 1905, Page 2

ESTABLISHED 1875. The Manawatu Daily Times. The Oldest Manawatu Journal Published Every Morning. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1905. A NATION'S BIRTH THROES.

In blood and tests the Russian people have had to tread the path that leads to national enfranchisement, and through blood and tears they must continue to walk to attain tbeir realisation of.that brighter era, the hope of which, in the darkest hours of their history, has ever, upheld and strengthened Russia's " noble army of martyrs." There is nothing new or unexpected in the mutiny at Odessa, the revolt at Libau, and the universal eruptions of popular discontent. Every traveller of note, every exiled patriot, every foreign official, every man and woman not blinded by the official ignorance and arrogant assumption that, like the fabled cloak of Nessus, envelop tho Czar and his advisers, is oonfidtnfc in the opinion that Russia haa entered upon a stage in her history from which retreat is hopeless and advance into the broad light of rational individual liberty as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun. That during this process of disintegration and reintegration there will be many Odessa panics and Lodz massacres is, unhappily, more than probable. It is not a nation of free .men who are in revolt, but a nation of slaves—men and women in whom has been burned the lesson that they must abandon all hope of mercy once they protest against the fiat of the Czar.

Tbe world does not know a tithe of the reality; it has been fooled and deceived by ostentatiously paraded Imperial decrees and official explanations. It has too often taken these at their face value until some more or less ghastly crime or out break has awakened it to the reality. Siberian exile has been abolished by Imperial decree many times during recent years, but Siberian exile, with its nameless horrors and unspeakable infamies, continues to this hour. In 1900 the world was solemnly assured that there would be no exile of

political offenders to the "lie dv Diable " —Saghalien, which we hope may soon be in possession of Japan— yet, according to official returns, there were 910 persons sent to Siberia in 1903, and 592 to other equally barren and isolated places. These exiles, in tho majority of instances, are relined and educated men and women, who have been, torn from their homes and families and subjected to shameful physical and moral indignities for nothing more harmful than circulating Socialist pamphlets or novels which every Englishman can purchase at any shop or read in any newspaper in any part of the British Empire. The world has also been officially advised that the " knout " was done away with. It may have been, but if so the "plefc " continues in use as a gentle corrective to the bodies of those who have ventured upon a free expression of mildly open political opinion?. On the 6th of November, 1889, a lady (Madame Sigida, a Siberian exile) was given one hundred blows with rods. She died two days later. Brutal whippings of girls and women are common-places in recent Russian administrative methods. Solitary confinement, persisted in until the poor victims go mad, daily interrogations that rival the tortures of the Inquisition, and the personal contamination of the clean and tho pure with the foul and the debased— these constitute tho every-day catalogue of acts committed under a form of so called Christian government.

There is no reign of law in Russia as the term is understood in Western Europe and America. The Council of Ministers, ir.divi'dual Ministers, Court favorites, and tbe Czar himself constantly issue decrees which would not be tolerated for five minutes in any other country. There are special tribunals, martial law and administrative order?, osch of which is alike an instrument of tyranny. There ia neither freedom of speech nor freedom of thought. Secession from the Orthodox Church is punishable by exile, and the most' recent Imperial decree granting religious toleration will, there is reason to believe, prove as cruel a mockery as any of its predecessors. What Russia wants is, failing regeneration, a thorough revolution. The former seems to ba hopeless. Autocracy is determined ,to repress, not redress; to maintain its privileges ; and refuses to elevate its millions of suppliants. That this form of government is credible or possible in the early years of tne twentieth century seems an anachronism. But it exists, and the cure must come from within.

Hot and indignant as the outside world may be, the Christian Powers are not disposed to take joint action to amend or end the sanguinary scandal. Were it Bulgaria, Armenia, or Samoa, tbe case would be different ; but as it is, civilisation must perforce stand idly by and watch the grim trend of events in awed silence. Fortunately, in the judgment of competent observers, "Kussia " is an autocracy on the top of a " democracy, and when Russians " can throw off the incrustations " with which bureaucrats have " plastered all official life, they will " then show a spontaneity, versa- " tility, and adaptability in govern- " ment." This augurs well for the future of the nation ; but at present she has to pay the price of her heritage. The crime, outrage, lust, and pillage which the world is hourly called upon to witness are merely the dread effects of far-reaching causes. In the words of a recent writer:

The evil heritage of modern Russia consists in tbe historical bequest of a hard and mechanical despotism, whioh seeks to suppress the growing- natural self-consciousness of a people of different races, language?, and religious beliefs, who are beginning, under the pressure of tyranny in one direotion and of economic laws in another, to realise the possibility ot unity.

That Russia will ultimately emerge from the inferno of to-day into a self-respecting, self-governing nation we verily believe. Her people cannot for ever live in a state of anarchy. The forces that make for permanence and enlightenment are on the side of the reformers, and the present generation will possibly live to see ** this great people, long thwarted, " take its rightful place among the " free and progressive States of the "world."